From Walter Ukaegbu, Abuja
STANDARDS Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has promised to partner the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) to fight the current wave of production and sale of substandard building materials as a result of the rise in building collapse across the country.
The Acting Director General of SON, Dr. Paul Angya, made this known recently in Abuja when the executive members of the institute led by its President, Tonye Braide, visited him.
Angya said the increasing rate of building collapse in the country was worrisome and called on the institute to see themselves as partners in the development of Nigeria by becoming vanguards of standards.
He informed the institute of an existing task force in SON, and invited them to partner SON to fight and instil discipline in the build industry, particularly the iron and steel sector as well as other components that are suspected to be major problems and causes of building collapse in the country.
The Director General also said that SON was willing to sign a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the institute, promising to put together a team that will work out the criteria with the institute. He enjoined them to have a better understanding of standards as that will be the basis for working together.
Angya used the forum to inform members of the institute that electrical cables made in Nigeria rank among the best in the world, but regretted that some unscrupulous Nigerian businessmen and women, in connivance with their foreign cohorts, import substandard foreign cables and label them “Made in Nigeria” in order to deceive the unsuspecting consumer, adding that the fight against substandard products/services in the country should be seen as a fight by all Nigerians to minimise the influx of substandard products in the country.
Earlier in his address, President of the institute, Tonye Braide, thanked the Acting Director General and management of SON for the warm reception accorded him and his team. He informed the DG that they were in SON to seek ways of collaborating with it in the fight against the production and sale of substandard building materials which in turn is the result of the increasing incidences of building collapse.